Using PEGWriting to Support the Writing Motivation and Writing Quality of Eighth-Grade Students: A Quasi-Experimental Study

A quasi-experimental study compared the effects of feedback condition on eighth-grade students’ writing motivation and writing achievement. Four classes of eighth-graders were assigned to a combined feedback condition in which they received feedback on their writing from their teacher and from an automated essay evaluation (AEE) system called PEGWriting®. Four other eighth-grade classes were assigned to a teacher feedback condition, in which they solely received feedback from their teacher via GoogleDocs. Results indicated that students in the combined PEGWriting+Teacher Feedback condition received feedback more quickly and indicated that they were more likely to solve problems in their writing. Equal writing quality was achieved between feedback groups even though teachers in the PEGWriting condition spent less time providing feedback to students than in the GoogleDocs condition. Results suggest that PEGWriting enabled teachers to offload certain aspects of the feedback process and promoted greater independence and persistence for students.